This hulking creature has been dubbed — appropriately enough — The Big Tree. It stands not far from the Zambezi River above Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. It would have been standing there when Scottish explorer David Livingstone (of the “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” fame) in the mid-1800s renamed a glorious waterfall in Africa that he had come across after Victoria, Britain’s monarch at the time.
The sign identifies this as a Baobab tree (Adansonia digitata). Its girth comes in at 18 meters (59 feet), its height a whopping 25 meters (82 feet). It came into being sometime between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago. The tree blooms in early summer, which in Zimbabwe runs from November to March. (Photo by John Wingard)